


happy here with you

by Areiton



Series: Find Me In the World [20]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Getting Together, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Stiles, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: They talked about everything--except the future.It made him nervous.





	happy here with you

They talk about a lot of things.

About the past and their fears.

About movies and books.

About Stiles’ father and Derek’s pack.

They talk about work and philosophy, about their dead and their demons and their scars.

They talk, when they’re together and when they’re apart, a steady stream of conversation that fills up the empty spaces and leaves comfortable companionship in the silences, and settles both of them.

After he left Beacon Hills, he thought his words dried up.

He didn’t talk to strangers much, and when he did talk to people, it was careful. It was measured, never the incessant babble that had marked his entire life.

Life had been like that for six years--careful words, guarded conversations, quiet listening.

And then Derek fell through his bedroom window and it was--

It was like waking up after a long nap, drowsy and slow and invigorating.

He hadn’t realized how lonely he was until Derek was there, to keep him company.

He hadn’t realized how quiet life was, until Derek brought noise into his life.

Derek. Still the worst at using his words, and still able to understand Stiles, still able to speak almost effortlessly, sometimes wordlessly.

How--the question he wondered most-- _how_  had they gone so long without each other?

They talked about everything--except the future.

It made him nervous.

Because Derek had a life. And the first time he went to Maine, met the pack of omegas who he cared for and led, met _Lily,_ he knew he could never expect Derek to leave Maine, the little life that he’d built, new that he’d never _want_ to ask.

He didn’t know what that meant, though.

He didn’t know how to fit their worlds, hundreds of miles apart, back together.

But as months slid past and words filled up between them, he knew that they needed to. He knew that together is what they both wanted and needed.

Even with the history unmapped, he _knew._

His dad told him he was thinking of selling the house, and Stiles blinked at him, and then nodded.

He looked for jobs.

He looked for a place to live.

But he didn’t talk to Derek about it because even now--a year after they finally crawled into bed together--even now he was determined to be careful.

To give them both the space they needed.

But when he’s here, wrapped up in Derek’s world, he never wants to leave. He wants to say fuck it, fuck space, fuck slow--he wants _this._

He wants this forever.

“Are you happy,” Derek asks, abruptly, and Stiles blinks, looks up from his tablet. He’s been staring at it without really seeing what he’s looking at, and Derek is pressed against his side, a warm line of skin and scruff and bright shining eyes.

And worry. He’s biting his lip, peering at Stiles, worried.

“Yes,” he says, his voice thick with conviction and sincerity.

“You--sometimes, you smell sad.”

Stiles carefully lowers his tablet and sits up, crossing his legs as he faces his lover. Derek doesn’t look away and it hits him like it always does--startling and humbling.

Derek would have looked away, before.

But Derek would never have started this conversation, before.

“I am sad, sometimes,” he admits. “We both are. I think, we both always will carry sadness, Derek. You have your family and I have mine, and even though it doesn’t hurt the way it _did_ \--it’s never going to go away.”

“You learn to live with your grief,” Derek mumbles, and Stiles nods. Pets a hand through thick dark hair.

“But I’m happy here,” he says, and Derek looks away.

Stiles tugs on his hair, until pale green eyes snap up to meet his. “I am _happy,”_ Stiles says, fiercely, “With _you._ Here, with you. Don’t ever think I’m not.”

“But--” Derek hesitates, and says, in a rush, “I don’t want to leave here. I can’t leave the pack, I can’t leave Alina.”

Stiles nods, and smiles, and says. “We’ll figure it out.”

“ _How,”_ Derek demands, plaintive. All of it is there, all of the things they don’t talk about, the looming future they’ve avoided looking at,like a child who still believed if they didn’t see the monster, the monster wouldn’t see them.

“Dad is selling his house. And mine--I’ve talked to a realtor about putting it up for rent. There’s an agency that would handle it, deposit the money in my account. It wouldn’t be hard.”

Derek is still, staring at him with cautious, hopeful eyes and Stiles huffs, leaning down to kiss him.

“Trust me,” Stiles murmurs and Derek sighs, happily.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's one part left. <3 
> 
>  
> 
> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://areiton.tumblr.com/)!


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